A Girl...

A List Means I Don't Have to Write Transitions

Because it's not going to happen any other way:

Meg: You are a remarkable person and I will totally take you up on the offer when the time comes. You are one of the people who totally rocks thirtysomething and should write a book about the magic lemonade you make with all those lemons.

Clink: I know you know. But allow me to play the older and wiser one for once and tell you, honey, you've got plenty of time; you're practically a child. ;) There, now I feel better. And also old. Boo.

Amanda: You are sweet and understanding and part of the problem for having such a beautiful baby and making it all look easy. Grr. But I love you.

Paige: Yes! I am Rachel! Only with less fussy hair! And bigger thighs! My original timeline--the one I had planned out in great detail while dating the last guy? Had me barefoot and pregnant at age 27, which is NOW, so, yeah, things change, I totally get that, and sometimes we end up hitting the restart button in our romantic lives and that puts us in different and surprising places at different and surprising times. But then, a restart with a new boyfriend doesn't necessarily mean that the biological clock gets restarted too, so poor Simon still has to deal with my nagging. And my flabby thighs.

JenB: Not unhappy, not at all. And I'm totally enjoying my smoking-hot love slave, yes indeedy. But I'm afraid the chilling is just not going to happen. Maybe if I visited you in the tundra?

Angella: Again, you make thirtyhood and motherhood look glamorous; can I be you when I grow up?

AnotherLeah: Welcome to the commenting party! And yes, yes, a million times yes. I have been wanting marriage and babies for, oh, six or seven years now (and I was once in a position where marriage was imminent), so when I'm told (by myself as much as by others) to be patient, all I can think is I HAVE been patient. For a long time. And you hit it right on the nose when you said that finding The Guy to End All Guys only magnifies those feelings. Add to it the fact that guys really seem to dig me as a girlfriend but get all weirded out at the thought of marrying me, and you might say I have a little bit of baggage about feeling like The Girl No One Wants to Marry. Can open, worms everywhere. That's a topic for another day, if I dare.

Felicity: You seem to be able to keep everything in check pretty well. It seems like every time you say "Babies! Aw!" you remind yourself of the time and energy and patience commitments and talk yourself down from the procreation ledge for just a little while longer. I've been doing it for years and it's not really working anymore. What's your secret?

Jonniker: Between Jimmy's asthma and Janie's case of the sluttskies, you've opened up for me a whole new terrifying world of worry. Which, strangely, only makes me want to get there sooner because I guess I'd rather worry about actual problems than problems I invent while laying awake in bed.

The Narcissist: Oh, I already do have it figured out. I just need to get all the concerned parties on board! :)

JustJENN: I want to be like you in a lot of ways, but the non-working and then hyper-working ovaries is not one of them. I am, of course, completely convinced based on no evidence whatsoever that this is exactly how it will go down with me.

SAJ: You were around for the first engagement; wasn't that excitement enough? No? Yeah, not for me either. Stay tuned. It will happen and I'll be sure to tell you all about it.

A Girl You Know: Having a wedding? Okay. Planning a wedding? Not really interested, to be honest. Now how in the world is that going to work, I wonder.

Lulu: Yes, thank god there is no "settling" going on here. Simon is a gourmet sandwich that I want at every meal. I am extraordinarily lucky to have what I do, and even though I seem a tad obsessed with progressing on to the Next Big Thing, I'm chock full of gratitude for the here and now and the company I keep. This is just how I roll--when can I introduce you to the internet? when can we move in together? when when when?

Momo: Guys are weird like that, yes? When we're fixated on A, why do they wait until we've moved on to Fixation B to tell us they're now fixated on A too? Argh. Maybe it's that as soon as they're not feeling so much pressure they get comfortable enough to make those kinds of big decisions on their own terms. Remember when Zak was being all weird about Lane's pregnancy on Gilmore Girls because he felt bad that she was excited and he was mostly just scared? And then Lane said that she was scared too and then they agreed that "Yeah, this baby sucks!" and then they high-fived and everything was fine? It's kind of like that.

Reddirtroad: We have a plan. Actually, we have lots of plans. But whereas Simon is comfortable being vague, trusting that things will happen of their own accord, I'm the realist who knows that if you want a house, you have to actively save money for it; if you want to get married, you have to go out and sign the paperwork; and if you want a baby, you have to dump the birth control. Some things, like love, can "just happen," but other things require action and intention and planning. I'm JUST SAYING.

Bokker: We've talked and talked and talked about it, and it's just not that easy. There are private circumstances and other people involved that make our situation a little more complicated than it appears. But we will continue to talk and wait and plan (and not-plan), and I will do my best not to become completely intolerable because, as I told Lawyerish yesterday, winning by coercion is not the kind of victory I'm after.

Johanna: Yes, it's the mind space that's the biggest issue. I'm not feeling unloved or unsettled or insecure or anything like that--it's just that I can't stop thinking about all this stuff and it's freakin' exhausting! Patience is an elusive virtue.

Carrster: Seriously, what's up with the ticking? Is there some sort of muffler we can get to quiet things down in there? And poor you! I can't imagine what it feels like to be married and have a ticking clock; whereas I still have plenty of people saying "chill out and get married first," you don't have any of that silly matrimony stuff standing in your way and you must be chomping at the bit.

Sarah: You're right. And wrong. And gosh, there's just no good solution to this, is there?

Lawyerish: Yes! Thank you! "If your timeline is super-important to you, then it's super-important and 'chill out' isn't really applicable." Amen! And as for proposing to Simon, you and I have had our little exchange about that, but for everyone else reading, let me say that I have thought of this and told Simon about it (a while ago) and my biggest hang-up about it is being afraid he won't say "yes" but "um, yeah, okay, sure, but maybe not right now?" That's not my dream proposal scenario. Also, I don't want to get engaged without there being some real intention behind it. Last time I was engaged for six months and wasn't even allowed to mention a wedding because he "wasn't ready." Been there, done that, thought it sucked.

Nikki: Babies? You? Really? Congratulations on finding a worthy man, my dear. It's been a long time coming.

Stephanie Brown: Yes, Simon is patient, thank god, but now that you mention it, I wonder if there's something in our genes that tells us women in our family need to get started on this thing kind of early. I am, after all, from good Mormon stock, and my DNA is probably programmed to feel this way in the interest of continuing the species. Mormon girls my age usually have three to five kids by the time they're my age. Old Maid: it's not just a card game for kids.

Rosie: I don't know what I'd do if the lines of communication weren't open between Simon and me. Probably go crazy. And become a resentful bitch. People who never voice their needs have little room to complain, says I. Hence my constant complaining. :)

Krissa: 1. You're right on, as per usual. So lucky am I to be in love with a wonderful guy that the wedding is really the least of my worries. Somedays I don't even care about it at all. It's just that I'm afraid one day I WILL care and regret it and besides, if I'm going to do it at all, why not do it before all the other things? Then again, I might never care. I just don't know.

2. Yes, Simon definitely needs to be ready, and I wouldn't dream of trying to bully him into something he's not interested in of his own accord. It's just, well, I think that if I'm compromising my timeline, should he compromise his too? Why is it that the most conservative denominator always gets to dictate this sort of thing? I waited a year to move in with him because he needed to be ready, and I have to say that it kind of sucked to have to do everything on his schedule. One part of me totally believes in waiting until both parties are ready, but another part of me believes in compromise.

3. I get it. Thanks.

Gimmy: So you're closing in on Official Baby Time? I couldn't be more excited. And green with jealousy. We were on the same timeline for a while there, and it's always been with a measure of wistful longing that I've watched you move through each phase with John. But would I want to be married to the last guy and be having his baby? Perish the thought.

Ava: How old are you? Sixteen? :) Time is on your side, my dear, and finishing school should definitely be part of your Master Plan.

Emily: You want to make a spreadsheet, don't you? A pie chart? A Venn Diagram? :) In thinking about all of this stuff lo these many years, I have been quite pleased to realize that although seeing my peers pop out precious spawn left and right makes me all gooey inside, that's pretty much the extent of the societal pressures I feel. I'm positive that wanting the things I want (and in the order I want them) is the product of my own personal preferences and not borne of some need to fulfill a socially acceptable mold. This, to me, is very good news, because a lot of people get married and have children for a host of relatively unsound and unhealthy reasons, and I'm glad I've got my priorities straight (as far as I can tell). These dreams and desires came straight from my gut, and if they happen to resemble the mainstream mode of conduct, it's mostly coincidence. (Not that I'm unaffected by my environment, but I do think I'm able to make important decisions largely independent of it.) I wish everyone out there could have the same confidence in their own decisions and then maybe there wouldn't be so many early/late marriages, early/late divorces, and children born for the purpose of saving marriages or appeasing grandparents or wearing cute outfits or relieving the boredom of a 9 to 5.

Patches: I'm working on not worrying. But there are certain things that just don't happen on their own, and that's what I'm all antsy about.

T-bone: I'm with you on the "if something is right, it might as well be right now." But as much as it is my nature to feel that way, it's Simon's nature to be leisurely about this sort of thing, and this is, after all, a partnership. In that way, we're practically married already.

Monkey: Don't even talk to me about my aging eggs. And you're absolutely right: when we are free to make choices, we must accept the prices those choices come at, and the more comfortable we are with that the happier we'll be. For you, that means career trumps family planning, which is awesome because you've made that choice consciously and firmly. But the other side of that coin is Simon wants to put off family planning for things like travel and adventure, but in my book, the family planning is waaaay more important. This is where we get to compromise.

Missy: I could have written that comment. It's like waiting for Christmas when you're a little kid, isn't it? You know it's coming but it's taking FOREVER to get here, and the longer it takes the more worked up you get until you find that you can't even sleep anymore because the magic is just around the corner. Now, imagine that Christmas wasn't on December 25 but on some undetermined date in the vague future--could be next week, could be five years from now. It's hard to stay excited for that long without going bonkers, but you don't want to stop being excited either because that takes all the fun out of it. I guess that's what I'm really after: a date. A year even. Something I can mark on my calendar and look forward to with just the right amount of non-insane, non-damaging excitement. If only it were that easy.

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts and support.

Posted by Leah at December 15, 2006 12:02 PM